


I have time

by peterparkr



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: About Time AU, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, But also it's discussed, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter can time travel!, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, actually multiple, except Peter can time travel, for now but happy ending coming soon, so that's new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22404031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterparkr/pseuds/peterparkr
Summary: “That’s the thing though.” Peter leans back in his chair so that it tips onto the two hind legs and crosses his hands behind his head. “I have all the time in the world. Literally.”ORA Time Traveler!Peter About Time AU
Relationships: Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 73
Kudos: 488
Collections: I Found These Masterpieces And Fell In Love





	1. BEFORE

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I’m back on my iw/endgame angst bullshit. Yes, I decided to combine the laws of time travel from two different movies that already have time travel rules that make no sense. Yes, I created many more plot-holes in doing so.
> 
> I hope you all will enjoy it anyway :)
> 
> Also if you haven’t seen About Time, it’s on netflix and it’s a wonderful tearjerker with a good message despite some plot holey flaws and I highly recommend
> 
> If the timeline is off, my apologies

**November 4, 2017**

“You know, the spider stuff isn’t my only thing,” Peter says.

He’s speaking around a mouthful of potato chips. It’s almost enough to make Tony question why he elects to spend a significant portion of his free time hanging out with a teenager.

“By ‘thing’, I’m assuming you mean powers.”

Peter nods, tilting his head and the bag back to funnel the remaining crumbs into his mouth. He’s the picture of nonchalance. If Tony didn’t have a lifetime of media training, his mouth would be hanging open.

“Are you kidding? I’ve known you for over a year and you never thought to mention that you have  _ other powers. _ ”

Peter shrugs. “They’re not, like, useful—per se.”

“Per se,” Tony echoes. “Do you even know what that means?”

That rouses Peter from his unconcerned lounging position, face twisting in indignation and cheeks heating up, just as Tony had hoped it would. He’s used to being the collected one in a conversation. He likes it that way.

“I—I know what it means, Mr. Stark! It, um, well I don’t know how to describe—“

“Doesn’t matter. What powers?”

“Per se is like, you know, kind of like exactly, maybe?”

“I don’t care about per se. I’m over per se. What powers, Peter?”

Peter wipes his hands on his jeans. Tony can see the grease stains. It’s all he can do not to grimace. He just hopes the kid won’t touch any of the equipment like that.

“Peter, powers,” Tony prompts again.

He looks up, eyeing Tony. “It’s kind of supposed to be a secret. And I’m afraid you won’t believe me.”

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

Peter wrings his greasy hands—too close to the couch’s white leather exterior for Tony’s liking. 

“Yeah, I don’t know who else to tell. Because I sort of have a problem.” 

Tony’s heart skips a beat, maybe two, because if Peter has a ‘sort of’ problem that means it’s definitely above an 8 on the danger scale that Tony has implemented for him. His face must show his horror, because Peter’s quick to start waving his hands around.

“Not like a big problem, I promise!”

Tony rests his head between his palms, rubbing circles into his temples. “Explain. Before I keel over and then you have to tell some very powerful individuals that you killed Iron Man.”

“I wouldn’t have to,” Peter chirps. “Thanks to this power.”

Possibilities filter through Tony’s head. He considers some sort of telepathic ability to control what people see and think. Or maybe invisibility, Tony’s dead body could just disappear. He prays against necromancy.

“You’ve got thirty seconds until my heart stops.”

Peter starts to laugh and then aborts the action halfway through. “That’s a joke, right?”

“Parker!”

“Fine, fine!” Peter holds his hands up, a faux-innocent grin on his face. “It’s—I can, well, time travel, sort of.”

‘Sort of’ time travel is like a ‘sort of’ problem. The kid can either time travel or he can’t. There’s no ‘sort of’ about it. Every intelligent thought in Tony’s brain wants to refute the statement, but the apprehensive look on Peter’s face, combined with the gods, witches, and aliens Tony’s met over the years, stops him.

“Okay. I’m going to need a little more than that.”

“It’s—um, it’s weird to say out loud. I’ve never talked about it with anyone before, except Ben. Because it’s, like, this family thing? From my dad’s side, so Ben could, too. And I guess my dad, yeah.”

Tony works hard to keep his face neutral, but his brain is firing somewhere between complete shock and excitement. It’s a genetic thing. There must be science behind it. His hands itch to start figuring it out. 

But, he can’t. One of Peter’s biggest fears is becoming an experiment. If he doesn’t want Tony poking around with his spider stuff, he surely doesn’t want Tony messing with this.

“But, my dad and Ben, they’re both, you know, so—“ Peter trails off, wide eyes fixed on Tony.

It’s a little scary because that look means that Tony’s some sort of equivalent or next in line. He’s not sure if that’s what he signed up for that day in May Parker’s apartment. But, as is so often the case with Peter, he doesn’t turn away, or make a snarky joke, or tell the kid that it’s all too much. Pepper says it’s because he cares for Peter in a paternal way. Tony’s still banking on this being a strictly mentor/mentee affair. Rhodey tells him that ship sailed a while ago.

“I would tell May, but Ben never did, so I don’t want to disrespect his choice, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that,” Tony says. “What I don’t get—how does it work?”

“Oh, right. Well I kind of just—“ Peter scrunches his body into a ball on his chair and covers his eyes with his hands. “And then I think really hard and there I go!”

If it was anyone else, Tony would be convinced that this was an elaborate prank. Peter wouldn’t do that—he doesn’t think. The kid has gotten more comfortable with him since the first couple months but not comfortable enough to do that.

“And there you go—go where exactly? Anywhere in time?”

“Not exactly. Can I—um, FRIDAY?”

A holographic projection appears next to Peter. He grabs a stylus and starts scribbling on the table in front of him. Everything he writes appears on the projection.

“This is how Ben explained it to me—“

Peter draws a horizontal line. He makes a tick mark towards the left and writes ‘2001 (birth)’ under it, then an identical one on the right that says ‘Present’. He shades in the space in between.

“I can go anywhere from the day I was born to now. Or, well technically tonight because I’ve done today before. I can’t go farther back or into the future. Which makes it significantly less cool, Mr. Stark. When Ben first told me, I thought I could go back and see Ancient Greece or like, if the pyramids were really made by aliens!”

“They weren’t. The Egyptians were just good engineers,” Tony says and then shakes himself because there were significantly more important tidbits of information to address in Peter’s statement. He can’t let himself get sucked into his ramblings. “Rewind a little. Back to you’ve ‘done today before’.”

“I’ll get to that, let me finish explaining first!”

Tony sighs, but waves a hand to signal for Peter to continue. “I don’t have all day.”

“That’s the thing though.” Peter leans back in his chair so that it tips onto the two hind legs, crosses his arms behind his head, and hooks his legs under the lab table to keep him from toppling over. “I have all the time in the world. Quite literally.”

He’s got a shit-eating grin on his face, like he’s been waiting to use that terrible excuse for a joke his whole life. He probably has been.

“Well, I  _ still  _ don’t. Cut to the chase.”   


“Fine, fine.” Peter lets the chair rock back forward so that all the legs are on the ground. “It’s like, I take my own place, there aren’t two of me or anything. I can relive my life from the moment that I went back to, or I can go back up to the moment I left.”

“That sounds—vaguely impossible. And dangerous.”

Peter twirls the stylus around in his hand a few times before putting it down. “It’s a responsibility. You have to use it for the right things. If you can change something, and you don’t, it becomes your fault.”

He’s said similar things before, about his other powers. Tony’s pretty sure that they aren’t originally Peter’s words

“Do you ever go back and see him?”

Peter freezes. The stylus falls out of his hand and bounces off the table to the ground. He looks helplessly between it and Tony before dropping down to his hands and knees. He stays on the floor for longer than it should take to retrieve the stylus.

“There’s not a wrong answer, kid.”

Peter chews on his lower lip. “I don’t—he doesn’t know. I just act normal. I don’t think he’d want me to use it like that.”

This is the part where Tony should reach over, lay a hand on Peter’s shoulder, squeeze it, maybe, offer some words of advice or comfort. But, for once he’s at a loss for words. It doesn’t happen often.

“He told me I wasn’t allowed to try to change it. As he was—dying—that’s the last thing he said. He’d tried it I think, repeated that day a few times. Um—”

Tony swallows. He wishes that life had been kinder to Peter. He wonders how the kid stays so bright and good when his life has been anything but. Tony knows that he wouldn’t have the same disposition if their roles were reversed.

“He sounds like a good guy, Pete.”

Peter nods.

“What happens today? Why are you repeating it?”

Peter finally looks Tony in the eye again—a welcome change after the last couple of minutes. “May keeps finding out about Spider-Man!”

Tony feels about half the tension leaving his body. He mentally moves the danger-meter down to a 3. Then he thinks about May Parker and ups it to a 4.5.

“She found out right after the whole homecoming thing—remember that, the vulture guy?”

Tony’s blood pressure goes right back up at the mere mention of it. It’s on his list of greatest mistakes. Somewhere under trusting Obadiah and creating Ultron, but above getting his Malibu house blown up.

“I just re-did that and it was fine. But then a few months later she found out  _ again _ . And then a few weeks after that. And now I’ve done today like, at least six times? Maybe seven. And she keeps finding the suit no matter where I hide it.”

“Maybe that’s a sign, kid. She was bound to find out eventually.”

Peter sighs. “That’s what I was afraid of. Ben used to say that some things were inevitable.”

“Hey, hey, don’t look so sullen about it. I can’t stomach that sort of thing.”

Peter collapses forward onto the table with a groan. “She’s going to kill me. She’s going to kill  _ you. _ ”

“I think we’ll be okay. We fought Captain America, remember?”

“This isn’t Captain America. This is May.”

Tony understands Peter’s point. He’s not looking forward to the wringer that May will put him through after she’s done freaking out to Peter. It’s not exactly a good look to encourage someone else’s child to fight in dangerous battles with super-powered individuals. 

“I think it will be a good thing. You’ll have someone else who knows—someone who’s not me or that friend of yours—a responsible adult.”

“Are you admitting that you’re not a responsible adult?”

“I’m admitting that I have no experience in the realm of adequate childcare.”

“Fair enough,” Peter says. “I’ll just let today play out then.”

The statement is overwhelming. Tony can’t quite wrap his head around the power that Peter has. It seems like too much for anyone to handle. Let alone a kid—a kid who happens to have a myriad of other unusual problems. What Tony said to Peter was true, he doesn’t know anything about childcare, but he does know how to worry. He watches Peter work on his homework— _ this is the sixth time I’ve done these problems, it’s ridiculous, Mr. Stark— _ and does just that.

**November 5, 2017**

“Boss, you have an incoming call.”

“From?”

“May Parker.”

Tony chokes on air. “Oh, shit. Don’t answer. I’ll call her back.”

“Okay, boss.”

Tony stares into space for a minute, trying to come up with any way to explain himself without looking like the irresponsible jackass that he is.

“Boss, there’s a disturbance in the lobby.”

Tony stands, almost relieved to be able to brush the May problem aside for now. “What kind of disturbance?”

FRIDAY is silent for a moment. Tony taps his fingers on his thigh.

“May Parker is here.”

Tony feels the color drain from his face. 

**November 11, 2017**

“Pete?”

Tony squints at the human-boy-shaped figure in the corner. He’s fairly certain it’s Peter, seeing as FRIDAY hasn’t alerted him to the presence of an intruder, and Peter’s the only semi-human-boy that Tony has given near full access to the tower.

The figure turns slowly. “Hey, Mr. Stark.”

Tony doesn’t like the tone. Or the fact that Peter is lurking in a dark kitchen sometime after midnight, especially when Tony’s pretty sure that May isn’t going to give on her rule that Peter’s not allowed within 100 feet of him anytime soon.

“Are you hurt? FRIDAY, lights.”

The lights come up and Peter winces, shielding his eyes. He’s all in one piece, in normal clothes, not his suit. Tony doesn’t see any blood or prominent bruises. He just looks tired. A deep weariness that would be more suited on a middle-aged man than on a 17 year-old boy.

“Hey,” Peter repeats.

“Is May really laying into you, then? Don’t worry about it, she’ll come around.”

Peter blinks. “What?”

“About Spider-Man? The big reveal?”

“Right.” Peter’s eyes dart momentarily to the side before coming back to Tony. “Yeah, she’s, uh, pissed.”

“It’ll pass. This’ll be nothing in the grand scheme of things, I promise.”

Peter laughs. It seems to echo through the room. For some reason, it sends a chill down Tony’s spine.

“What brings you here, then?”

“I just—I wanted to see you.”

“Your aunt and I are meeting up this week. It’ll be better after we’ve talked everything out.”

Peter looks at him. Tony feels off-kilter under the stare. Part of him wants to squirm under the weight, like a child. Another part of him wants to shake Peter, make the tired expression and sad eyes fade away.

“Um. Yeah.” Peter shoves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “I’d better go, Mr. Stark. I’ll see you.”

He dashes toward the door. It slams shut behind him before Tony can move or protest. He hurries over to it, and pushes it open, but Peter’s long gone. Tony’s left with a bad taste in his mouth and a nagging feeling that the person he saw wasn't the Peter he knows at all.

**January 17, 2018**

It all clicks when Peter catches a falling glass as the waitress passes their table. That by itself is not completely out of the ordinary because Peter has superhuman reflexes. The part that surprises Tony is the lack of fanfare. Peter would usually gasp at his own ability, break into a grin, maybe even drop the glass in his excitement.

Instead, he just keeps holding it up until the waitress takes it back, apologizing and thanking Peter.

Everything else starts to make sense. Peter has been teetering between bored and stressed the whole afternoon. He only exhibited the barest hints of excitement at the new suit updates Tony showed him.

“How many times have you done today?”

Peter starts spluttering. “I—what, I never said—um, how? That’s not—nope. Just this time?”

“You’re a terrible liar. It actively keeps me up at night. One of these days I’m going to wake up and the whole world's going to know your identity.”

Peter’s lips curve down into a pout and he leans his head back against the booth.

“So,” Tony prompts. 

“A few times, okay? It doesn’t affect you.”

It’s not like Peter to snap it him. Tony raises his hypothesis for the number of repetitions.

“Well, it’s affecting me now,” he says. “What’s up? Maybe I can help.”

Peter’s knee bounces up and down under the table, causing it to shake slightly. Tony sips his coffee while he waits for a response.

“There’s this lady—when I patrol tonight. The first time I made a mistake, so I went back, but it didn’t fix it. She keeps dying.”

It’s about what Tony had expected after it had clicked. He’s not surprised in the slightest that this is how Peter uses his time traveling abilities, but he still doesn’t know how to respond. 

It’s not easy—letting go, allowing someone to die when maybe, just maybe there could have been a way to stop it. Tony’s never gotten used to it. He knows the logic. It’s impossible to save everyone in most situations. He’s sure that Peter does too, but logic sometimes goes out the window. It’s something they have in common. They don’t know how to stop.

“Sounds kind of like May finding out, kiddo.”

Peter’s eyes flash up, narrowed in anger that Tony knows is only directed at him because he’s the one here. It still hurts. 

“This is nothing like that. No one's life was  _ at stake _ then.”

“Pete, we can't save everyone.”

“I  _ can _ . That’s the point.”

Tony’s so far from being equipped to handle this. He picks up his sunglasses from where they lay on the table and then sets them back down an inch to the right.

“Sometimes, it’s just someone’s time. I know it’s hard. But it’s like you told me with your—“

“Don’t.”

“With your uncle,” Tony finishes. “He didn’t want you doing this for him over and over, and he wouldn’t want you doing it for someone else.”

Peter stands. “Don’t tell me what he would want. You didn’t know him.”

“I know, but I know you. You can’t—“

Peter shoots up, gripping the table with his hands. “Shut up! You’re not him!”

The plates on the table bounce and shake as Peter clambers out of the booth. He stalks out of the diner, leaving the restaurant in an awkward silence. The rest of the patron’s eyes are on Tony. He grabs the sunglasses and slides them onto his face. There are little divots in the wood of the table, where Peter’s hands dug into it. He stares into his coffee as if it can give him the answers.

**January 18, 2018**

Time continues and Tony remember the conversation. He guesses that means that Peter let it go.

There’s an article on the Daily Bugle’s website about the woman—Donna Rose, 57 years old, suffered a heart attack shortly after Spider-Man saved her from a mugger.

There’s a text from Peter, just one word— _ sorry. _

_ Me too. _

_ In my defense, I was planning to redo the day so you’d never remember what I said. _

_ Now I’m worried about how many terrible things you’ve said to me that I will never know about. _

**March 28, 2018**

“With all due respect, Mr. Vision, sir, that’s not going to work.”

Tony spins around. He’s learned not to be surprised every time a certain red and blue suit shows up out of nowhere, but it doesn’t mean that he likes it.

“Hey, Mr. Stark, Colonel Rhodes. Long time, no see.”

“Hey, Spider—“

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” Tony cuts Rhodey off.

“Yeah, but—“

“Nuh uh uh uh. No buts. There are three Avengers here. We’ve got this.”

Peter crosses his arms. The large eyes of his suit narrow into slits. “You’re not understanding me. It’s  _ not _ going to work.”

Vision floats over to Peter, looks him up and down. He doesn’t look annoyed, just confused.

“I’ve calculated possible solutions and predictable outcomes. This  _ is  _ the best way,” he says.

Peter just looks at Vision, blinking a few times, before turning to Tony.

“Mr. Stark, this doesn’t work. Really. I mean it.”

Tony’s stomach falls as the realization hits him. If Peter’s doing his time travel fix-it gig, this fight is going to be harder than they thought.

“Okay, okay.” If his hand wasn’t encased in metal, he’d be running it through his hair. “What do we need to do?”

Rhodey steps forward. “Um, Tony? What—“

“They have more firepower than they’re showing now. We have to destroy the ship before anything else.”

Tony feels two pairs of skeptical eyes on him. There’s not enough time to explain it to them, even if he could divulge Peter’s secret.

“You know how to do that?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Mr. Stark!”

“Alright, alright. Grab on.”

Peter sticks to his back and Tony takes off toward the ship.

“How much time do we have to do this?”

“Personally? I have time—plenty of it. I’d rather not keep repeating this though, it’s kind of exhausting.”

Tony rolls his eyes even though he knows Peter can’t see it.

“You, though, you only have about 25 minutes.”

It’s easy in the end. Peter knows exactly how to disable the weapons on the ship. Tony tries to tell him that he’s impressed, when they’re back on the ground, but Peter just shrugs it off. He says they worked it out last time.

**April 26, 2018**

Tony should have made the damn phone call. He was going to—but it’s hesitation that kills. And now he’s going to get beat to a pulp by a guy who looks like the illegitimate child of a dinosaur and the Hulk.

He throws up his hands in desperation, to block the impact, but nothing comes.

“What’s up, Mr. Stark?”

“Kid, where’d you come from?”

“Field trip to the MOMA—” Peter flies away as the creature throws him to the side.

He recovers quickly, webs flying out of his shooters faster than Tony can track.

“What is this guy’s problem, Mr. Stark?”

“Trying to steal a necklace from a wizard—how many times?”

The giant eyes of Peter’s suit squint at Tony. “This is the first. Why? Do you think we’re going to need more than one try?”

“I think that this is—this is it.”

He doesn’t have to explain it any further for Peter to understand. Even if they haven’t outright talked about it, he’s no stranger to Tony’s fears about the end.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Stark. We’ve got this. And if we don’t, I’ll fix it next time around.”

Everything speeds up after that. Peter’s flying through the air, then he’s on the space donut and Tony’s sending the newest suit to catch him, and then Tony’s in space—exactly where he never wanted to end up again.

And it gets even worse—as is the usual pattern of Tony’s life. Peter pops up out of nowhere, still on the ship and not gliding back down to Earth as he should be.

“Don’t pretend you thought this through. I know you didn’t—”

“I did think this through. I  _ did _ think this through. Mr. Stark. I’m the only one who can fix this if things go really wrong.”

“I told you to go home.” Tony hears his voice crack on the last word and he can't even reprimand himself for showing that kind of emotion. Because Peter’s seventeen—too young to be up here, too young to fight the impossible battle ahead of them, and definitely too young to carry the full responsibility of making sure they win this on his shoulders. 

One trip to Titan and an insane battle—a moon, a whole goddamn moon was thrown at them—later, Tony gets stabbed clear through. 

His eyes flutter. He looks around the desolate planet, wondering if it will be the last place he’ll see. 

Peter’s eyes go wide over Thanos’ shoulder. He sits down and covers his face with his hands, starts curling up into a little ball, just like he’d showed Tony when he’d first revealed his secondary set of powers.

“Peter, don’t,” he commands.

Thanos still doesn’t have all the stones. If Tony dies, but the world wins, so be it.

Then the wizard gives Thanos the time stone. Tony stares blankly as the titan disappears. This can’t be real. It must be a nightmare—just another nightmare.

“Why would you do that?” His voice seems to echo over the barren planet.

Peter dashes to Tony’s side, throwing an arm around him to help him stand. “Oh my god, are you okay?”

Tony sprays the wound to bandage it and nods, but it does nothing to assuage the pain or sinking feeling deep in the pit of his stomach that’s mirrored on the faces of everyone around him.

“You’re okay,” Peter confirms. “Should I do it now?”

It takes Tony a few seconds to decide on an answer. His brain feels scattered, trying to compute likely outcomes.

“Not yet,” he finally says. “I need to think.”

He takes a step toward Strange. Peter hovers by his side, gabbing his arm tight when Tony stumbles slightly. Tony shakes him off, pointing a finger at the wizard.

“Now, explain to me why we didn’t throw that stone in a blender. And more importantly why you just did the thing you  _ vowed _ you wouldn’t do.”

“Tony, I can fix it,” Peter says. “Just tell me what I should change and—“

“No, this shouldn’t fall to you! If the wizard here had just done his one job—“

“Stark,” Stephen interrupts, throwing his hands up in the air. “It doesn't work like that. This was the only way.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Oh, bullshit. You know what works—you know what would have worked? Keeping the stone from him, because it’s the thing he needed.”

A white hot strip of pain strikes through his core and Tony feels his body start to sway.

“Maybe you should sit down, Mr. Stark.”

“Something’s happening,” Mantis interjects.

And then she fades away, turns to dust. Tony takes a few steps backwards, not quite believing what he’s seeing.

Drax disappears next, then Quill, then Strange. Tony’s frozen in place.

“Mr. Stark?”

Tony had thought he’d known terror. There was Afghanistan and the wormhole and Pepper falling and Rhodey falling and watching the Guardians fade away. But this—this moment is unadulterated fear. His heart should stop, he doesn’t know why it keeps beating.

“Mr. Stark—I don’t—I don’t feel so good.”

“You’re alright.”

It’s the only option. He has to be. Tony can’t accept any other outcome. He couldn’t live with himself.

“I don’t wanna go, Mr. Stark. I don’t wanna go—“

Peter throws himself forward, collapsing into Tony’s arms. Tony squeezes him, as hard as he can, as if that could keep him from falling apart.

Tony’s brain is firing rapidly, trying to figure out anyway to stop this, to get out of it, to—

To go back.

“Peter, Peter, hey, listen to me.” Tony slaps his face a few times to try to get his attention, but his eyes stay hazy and unfocused. “Peter, do it now. Go back now. Do your thing, kiddo, c’mon.”

Peter blinks a few times in rapid succession. “Wha—?”

“Go back, Peter, go back. Tell me what went wrong, we’ll figure it out, okay?” Tony smooths his hair back. “For god’s sake, stay on Earth next time.”

He’s crumbling, right in front of Tony’s eyes, right in Tony’s hands. There’s nothing he can do. Except hope.

He clutches the pieces of dust to his face before forcing himself to let them go. He looks around. The wannabe Smurfette is the only one left. She’s staring down at him with dark impassive eyes and a matching blank expression.

“He did it.”

Tony swallows. He barely manages to restrain himself from punching the dusty—dust everywhere, everything’s dusty—surface of the planet. 

“It’s—Peter’s going to fix it.”

Her head tilts to the side, not exactly disbelieving, just inquisitive. “The boy?”

“He can go back,” Tony mumbles.

Her face doesn’t change. She stares at him. The planet is completely silent. Tony can’t stand it, but he also can’t bring himself to speak.

She turns to the crashed ship, boots crunching on the gravel with each step.

“What are you doing,” Tony chokes out.

“Fixing the ship.”

He watches her go. It won’t matter. It’ll all be reset tomorrow. 

He sits on the ground for a few minutes. But, that’s not his thing—he’s never been able to stay still for long. He’s a mechanic. He fixes things.

He pushes himself to his feet with a groan.

**April 27, 2018**

Tony watches the time on his HUD flash from 11:59:59 to 12:00:00. He stomach curls and twists as the seconds continue to tick past. He feels on the verge of a panic attack—or throwing up—or passing out. He almost wishes one of the three would happen, so he could have some kind of release.

“What’s wrong with you?”

He stares at the time until it hits 12:01, just to be sure. Then he takes the helmet off and picks up the wrench he had discarded earlier.

“It’s tomorrow,” he says.

She doesn’t ask for an explanation.


	2. AFTER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is longer than I thought ah. I hope you all enjoy!

**August 13, 2019**

As any self-respecting man would do when his dead-for-over-a-year-protégée-slash-maybe-son-figure shows up in front of him, Tony faints when he opens the front door and Peter’s standing outside of it.

He comes to on the couch. There’s a glass of water and two Advil on the table. It’s a sight he’s seen before—after wild nights or wilder days. For a moment he can’t place himself in time because this is his cabin, the life he’s built after all the partying and suits of metal and mistakes, but there’s a glass of water and pain medication and his head hurts.

And then Peter walks into the room and the pain turns back into the floaty light-headed-ness.

“You’re okay—thank god.” 

This is a hallucination. It must be. All of the trauma finally became too much and he’s cracked. He doesn’t know how he’s going to tell Pepper. But he’ll worry about that later.

For now, Tony tries to memorize everything about Peter. He has pictures, sure, and his memories, but the images only show so much and memories fade. He’d forgotten the way Peter looked at him, like he was important. Tony’s used to that from strangers, but then it wears off. For Peter, it never really had—it shifted into something deeper than idolization, but never went away. 

“I guess that’s one of the unforeseen consequences of time travel that Ben always talked about,” Peter continues with a dry laugh.

Tony’s train of thought is moving slower than it usually does. He hadn’t even thought of time travel. Mostly because—

“You can’t go past your—your death. That’s the rule,” Tony whispers. “You said that was the rule.”

Peter takes a deep breath. His mouth opens and closes, then opens again. “I can’t.”

“You’re—alive?” It's not possible. Tony felt him turn to ash. He held the little specks in his hands.

“No, not really, not yet.” Peter watches Tony, hesitant and unsure. “I didn’t think I’d be able to come here.”

So, Peter—and presumably the other missing half of the world—come back in the future. It shouldn't be possible. They tried. Tony was too sick, but the others tried. They found Thanos, killed the bastard, but the stones were gone. 

There were discussions and attempts to find other ways to fix it. Nothing panned out. The team, or lack-there-of, has been scattered for the better part of the year. Thor’s drinking himself to death in New Asgard. Okoye’s running Wakanda and relief efforts in her hemisphere. Bruce fell off the grid a few months back. Nebula, Carol, and Rocket are off-world. Nat’s got her orphanage. Rhodey’s running for president. Steve—Tony doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know. He’s got the cabin and Pep and the baby. They’re all trying to fit in the new version of the universe in their own ways.

“It’s good to see you,” Peter adds. His voice breaks a little in the middle.

Tony swipes the Advil from the table and downs it with a swig of water as he considers the statement. Clearly, he’s not in whatever future Peter’s come from. It makes sense. The universe wouldn’t give them a perfect ending after all of this. Nothing’s ever gone completely right for him. There’s no reason why that should start now.

“So you’ve passed my expiration date, then. Assuming you’re real.”

Peter’s face twists up. “Don’t say it like that. And I am real.”

“That’s what a hallucination would say.”

Peter shakes his head. He just keeps standing there, looking over Tony.

“Sit down, you’re making me nervous.”

“Would a hallucination sit?”

“I don’t know. I can’t say this happens to me often.”

Peter settles onto the couch, as far as he can from Tony. He feels a lifetime away—and maybe he is. 

“What happens?”

“I don’t know if I should tell you.”

He looks older than Tony remembers—or just more tired. It could be his imagination.

“Are you okay?”

“Mmhm.” Peter flashes a haunting smile that feels like a mirror. “The world’s saved.”

“Great. Not what I asked.”

“I, um—you know.”

“I don’t, actually.”

Peter’s Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows. He clears his throat and shrugs. Then he turns his whole body away and covers his face with his hands. 

“Sorry,” he whispers.

Tony wants to reach out, but he finds himself hesitating. Then, he shakes himself, because that’s what he would have done before, when he was still trying to keep Peter at arm’s length. It’s not what he should be doing now, when he’s a father and he’s learned over and over that time can’t be wasted.

He reaches out, curls his arm around Peter’s shoulder and pulls him close. It doesn’t take much force. Peter clings to Tony’s side immediately, shoulders shaking with sobs.

* * *

“It’s a loophole, I guess,” Peter says. “I’m not technically alive, but I guess I’m not 100% dead either, so I can come here.”

They’d moved into the garage so that Pepper and Morgan wouldn’t find them as soon as they walked into the cabin. Tony will tell them, eventually, but he doesn’t want another fainting fiasco.

“It’s—“ A miracle. A blessing. Good karma. But, Tony’s not sure if he believes in those things.

“Insane. I know. Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

“No, no. I’m glad. I’m happy.” Tony smiles.

“I just told you that you die.”

“Yeah, well, that was always going to happen.” Tony leans back and closes his eyes. “Tell me more about this future of yours—if you don’t need to get back there right away.”

“I have time, remember?”

Tony can hear the smile in his voice. It ignites something warm and strong—something that Tony thought he’d never fully feel again.

**September 27, 2019**

Dying young always seemed inevitable. Tony had never seen much use in getting old—losing your bodily abilities and even scarier, losing your mind. 

So, he lived fast—the drugs, the booze, fast cars, and faster jets. And then after that, there were suits to build and battles to fight and people to protect. 

But, now—now that he knows for sure, something shifts. 

Based on the way Peter looks at him, he knows he’ll be lucky if he gets to see Morgan reach double digits. So, he decides to live slow. He sort of decided that after Thanos, when he built the cabin, but he really leans into it now. 

He spends long days with Morgan, lying on grass or lounging on carpet. He builds toys and gadgets and they play with them for hours. 

He spends long nights with Pepper. They cook—she cooks, Tony hovers and she swats him away. They renovate the cabin. They talk about old things and new things and the future in a way that makes Tony almost desperate to change his fate.

He spends long weekends with Rhodey or Happy or both. They make him feel like a reckless kid again—like he’s sixteen in a dorm room with a roommate he never asked for, or twenty with an overeager bodyguard who never seems to leave his side.

He reaches out to the rest of the team because they’re his family too. They may have made a mess of it, but Tony’s never known family that wasn’t at least a little messy. They have weekly brunches. Tony and Steve sometimes hang out after—just the two of them. It’s awkward, but nice. It gets easier every time. The world is healing slowly and so are they.

**November 30, 2019**

“Hey, Mr. Stark!”

Tony drops his spoon in his bowl of cereal as Peter pulls out the chair next to him. He’s not quite used to the kid occasionally popping up out of nowhere. He also doesn’t know if it’s healthy for him to keep coming back here like this. It’s probably selfish that Tony never mentions it.

“We need to get you a bell to wear around your neck—so I’ll hear you coming.”

“Then it will just be louder when I get here. I think that might make it more scary.”

It’s not a bad point. Tony spoons another bite of cereal into his mouth and mulls over finding a way to create a system that will alert him. 

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Peter grins and then tries to contain it. He doesn’t quite succeed. His eyes still shine with happiness and his lips still stretch a little too wide.

It’s a good look on him. One that Tony hasn’t seen since he died.

“You’re the spitting image of the cheshire cat right now. Just tell me the news.”

His grin widens impossibly further. “Well, it’s really not a big deal, but there’s this girl.”

Tony makes a big exaggerated show of gasping and pretending to collapse in shock against the back of his chair. Then he starts to _oooh_ like a second grader who still believes in cooties. It causes a deep red to spring up in Peter’s cheeks and creep down his neck, but all through it he never stops smiling. Tony can’t get enough of it. Peter deserves to be happy after everything that happened—whatever it was.

“Well, c'mon then! Tell me about this girl who decided to give Peter Parker the time of day.”

“Um, her name’s Michelle. She kind of scares me, but in a good way, because she’s really cool and smart. She reads a lot and likes—er, murders? I had to redo our date like eight times—which I know isn’t what I should use it for, but—“

“Murders? Eight times? Did she try to kill you?”

“No! It’s—well—“ Peter blushes even more and ducks his head to try to hide it. “The first few times I was just awkward. But, then, she’s sort of taller than me? And I wanted to go in for, like, a kiss, you know? But the angle just felt wrong. So I tried a bunch of different ways—”

“Oh my god.” Tony facepalms. “Peter—”

“I know, I know! So I finally got the courage one time and I just blurted out like, ‘MJ, I don’t know how to kiss you!’ and she called me a dork and kissed me so it all worked out in the end.”

Tony shakes his head fondly. He leans back in his chair and settles in for a day of stories about this Scary Michelle.

**January 14, 2020**

Tony's lying awake one night when he comes up with the idea for EDITH. He knows that you're supposed to take advantage of the nights when the baby actually sleeps, but Tony's never been very good at following directions. Or at sleeping.

He eases out of bed slowly so that he won't wake Pepper and makes his way to the garage. He starts typing.

_Even Dead I'm The Hero_

He chuckles. It's funny. He hope it will make Peter smile.

**May 12, 2020**

Lazy Sunday afternoons are Tony’s favorite parts of living slow. One of Morgan’s princess movies is playing in the background, but no one is actually watching it. Pepper’s asleep in the armchair in the corner, Morgan sprawled across her in a similar condition. Tony closes his eyes to join them, but finds he would rather just take it in, enjoy the moment.

Peter steps into the room. His face softens when he sees Pepper and Morgan fast asleep. Then, he notices that Tony’s awake and smiles.

He looks taller—way taller, actually. Tony squints at him. There are hints of stubble on his chin and across his upper lip. It’s not quite the baby face that it used to be.

“You’re aging,” Tony says.

Peter laughs. “I’m nineteen. You don’t have to say that like a death sentence.”

“But when you go to the past—don’t you become that age?”

“I don’t exactly have a body here to come back to,” Peter says, with a casual shrug, as if it isn’t a panic attack inducing statement. “I’m not going to pretend I understand how it all works.”

Tony can’t wrap his head around it. Peter’s going to grow up in between his visits. He could be gone for a month and show up years older. It’ll be nice in a way—like Tony’s watching it all happen—but disconcerting, too. Maybe one day Peter will be older than him.

A hand comes up in front of his face. “Mr. Stark? Tony? Earth to Iron Man.”

He blinks a few times. “Yes?”

“Do you want to play chess?” 

“Chess,” Tony echoes. 

“I mean, we don’t have to. I just thought—it’s something we’ve never done before—” 

And these little trips to the past are opportunities for Peter to do the things that he wanted to do, but never got to. Tony envies that power. It’s best not to dwell on the things that he might try if he had the same chance.

“I don’t think I have a chess board,” he says. “But I’m sure FRIDAY could come up with something.”

Ten minutes later they have a holographic board set up between them and what feels like all the time they could ask for. 

**July 2, 2020**

“Daddy, Daddy, Petey!”

“Shhh, Morgan, don’t—oh no.”

The bed shakes and Tony feels Pepper stir next to him as something else, presumably his daughter, lands on his back.

“Up.” Morgan’s hands ball into the back of Tony’s shirt and pull.

Tony buries his head in the pillow and groans. Morgan takes her assault to the other side of the bed and Pepper must be a little more open to the prospect of getting up because she doesn’t make her way back to him.

“Sorry,” Peter whispers.

“It’s okay,” Pepper says.

Tony chuckles into the pillow. He can picture the look on her face—a tight smile that’s more of a grimace, the ‘you’ll pay for this later’ sharpness behind her eyes, her hair all tangled and smushed in the wrong places. He rolls over just so he can see it all.

It’s exactly how he imagined. He kisses her cheek, then Morgan’s.

“Petey,” Morgan whispers.

“I see that,” he replies. “Hey, kid.”

“Hey, Tony. I thought we could just play ‘til you guys got up but she got super excited and—“

“It’s fine, go play, bug. Mommy and I will be out in a second.”

Morgan scampers off the bed and Peter scoops her up in a fluid motion. He carries her out of the room with a little wave.

Tony collapses back down, throwing one arm over his eyes.

Pepper shifts. Tony can feel her eyes on him. “Are we ever going to talk about it?”

He takes his time removing the arm and opening his eyes back up. It’s not a conversation he particularly wants to have—especially on a morning that has the potential to be a little slice of perfection.

He decides to play dumb. “About?”

Pepper sighs. She doesn’t look angry. He almost wishes she would. She must have figured it out a while ago. “He wouldn’t keep coming back here if you were in the future.”

“What do you want me to say?”

She’s silent for a long time. Tony hooks his chin over her shoulder and studies the familiar freckles and lines that cover her face. 

“I don’t know.”

He hums and closes his eyes.

“How long, Tony?”

It’s his turn to give the unsatisfactory answer. Peter’s never given him the details. It’s probably for the best. Tony’s not sure if he wants to know them. “I don’t know.”

* * *

Peter's built Morgan a webstacle course in the family room—an appropriate level for a not-quite-two-year-old, but an impressive structure nonetheless. 

“There Morgan goes up the steps,” Peter narrates. “There’s a tunnel up ahead, could be tricky, but she’s trained her whole life for this.”

“What’s her prize for winning?”

Peter glances up. “Breakfast—I hope?”

“Does the announcer get the same prize?”

“Please?”

Tony grumbles about the strain on his resources loud enough for Peter to hear and dramatic enough so that he knows it’s a joke. He starts scrambling eggs—one of the few cooked things he can pull off without setting Pepper on edge. She’ll still come and take over from him eventually. She likes to be in control.

“How’s May? Pep and Morgan?” 

“Good! Everyone’s doing alright.”

“And school?”

Peter’s face twists. “Hard. Why didn’t you tell me it was so hard?”

“It wasn’t.” Tony cracks an egg into the pan. “At least back then. Or maybe it was just the kid genius-slash-child-prodigy thing I had going on.”

“Fuck off—I mean, shut up. Oops. That’s not much better, huh?”

“Be careful, she likes to repeat the bad words.” 

Pepper comes into the kitchen and beelines for the spatula, shooing Tony away. He puts up a little fight. It’s more of a ritual than an actual attempt to regain reign over the stove. He lost that battle long ago.

“Still with Scary Michelle?”

“God, please stop calling her ‘Scary Michelle’.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll never say it to her face!”

Peter’s smile falters and doesn’t quite make it back to it’s previous width. Pepper's hand stills over the pan. Tony wishes he could take the words back. It was just a joke—not exactly in good taste.

“So,” he prompts, trying to break the suddenly tense atmosphere. “Young love still treating you two right?”

“Well, you know.” Peter scoops Morgan up from the end of the obstacle course and carries her into the kitchen. “Long distance is hard. We’re doing a sort-of open relationship, now. Just so we can figure out what we both want. I think it’s a good move for us.”

Tony bites his cheeks so that he won’t laugh. He thinks of sort-of problems and sort-of time travel. He tries to nod, in a serious way, to match the gravity that Peter seems to be giving to the situation. 

“Are you seeing other people then?”

“Er, no.”

“Cool, is she?”

“Not really.”

“Great, got it.”

“But we _could._ That’s, like, the point, you know?”

“Mmhm. Right. Let me know how that turns out.”

Peter looks so much older now than he does in the pictures on the walls. He’s almost a proper man—taller than Tony, probably taller than Scary Michelle, too. He’s always happy to witness the moments when Peter’s words betray that there’s still a child in there—that he didn’t grow up too fast from everything that happened. 

**September 9, 2020**

“Your daughter’s a nuisance.”

Tony startles. A smattering of tools and miscellaneous objects scatter off the table as he knocks into it. 

Peter steps out of a shadowy corner of the garage without any semblance of remorse on his face. It doesn’t seem like he even notices that he spooked Tony, he just starts pacing in front of him.

“It’s ridiculous. I don’t know what’s gotten in—”

“You could have killed me you know. A heart attack wouldn’t be a completely out-of-character way for me to go.”

“Yeah, no, that’s not how it happens.”

Tony rolls his eyes and settles back into his seat.

“Is Morgan home? Can she hear me in here?”

“Doubt it. She’s also two—probably wouldn’t get that you’re talking about her.”

Peter’s eyes narrow. “I don’t know. She’s probably smarter than you think already. But, she’s tricky. She knows how to hide it and use it to her advantage.”

Something sharp slices through Tony. He takes a few breaths to stave it off. He’s not going to get mad at Peter. It’s not worth that. He tries to keep their visits as positive as possible. He thinks that everyone involved deserves it.

There’s just something about the way Peter talks about the Morgan of the future, sometimes. As if he knows her better than Tony does. The worst part is, that’s probably true. Tony doesn’t know how to accept it.

“Is she still trying to become a vigilante?”

Peter detailed it when he was here a few weeks ago. When he first said it, Tony pictured her in one of his suits, with upgrades or design changes. Instead, Peter said that she was running around in what basically amounted to pajamas and a mask (more like Peter’s beginnings than Tony’s) with a little weapon she fashioned herself. Tony never envisioned Morgan making weapons. She’s bubbly and fills the house with laughter—wouldn’t hurt a fly. He guesses that things change in a decade. He certainly made 180s in less time throughout his life.

Peter laughs without any joy in it. “Worse. She ran away. Hopped on a bus apparently. Pepper tracked her to _Miami._ ”

It sounds like the plot of a cliche coming of age novel. Peter continues to pace, hands moving in agitation as he speaks. He explains how he flew down to Florida at Pepper’s request—because Morgan would respond more favorably to him.

“And it worked,” he says. “I’m just stressed. I never know what’s going to happen next and Pepper tells me not to worry about it.”

That doesn’t sound like Pepper. Tony feels like she would have contingency plan after contingency plan for this sort of thing. 

“Why not?”

Peter spins to Tony, pointing at him. “Exactly! She’s 15 and she goes across a continent without even bringing one of her little contraptions to protect herself. No credit cards either, just a few twenties. It’s a nightmare!”

“Why’s Pepper so calm about it then?”

“God, I don’t know. Something about her running away when she was in high school, combined with what you did your whole life, meaning she’s lucky that Morgan isn’t doing worse right now or something like that. I don’t get it. I never ran away. What’s wrong with you people?”

“Well you’re a good kid,” Tony says. “But, I must point out that you did become an underage vigilante and refuse to follow any rules I set for you throughout a good portion of your teen years.”

“That’s different.”

“Barely.”

“Fine. She’s still a nuisance.”

Tony closes his eyes and pictures her. He tries to age up the version of Morgan that he knows, the same dark hair and eyes that are obviously from Tony himself, but she’s got Pepper’s nose and smile. He places a fire behind her eyes, a defiant way of holding herself in her demeanor. He’s glad that she’s got a fighting spirit. It will serve her well in the world once she has better causes to place it in than teenage rebellion. He wishes he could be there to see all that she accomplishes

He pushes the thoughts away and blinks a few times, then busies himself picking up the items that fell when Peter scared him.

“So, Pep doesn’t think it’s because of—me, right?” He directs it at a screwdriver rather than Peter.

Peter snorts. “Well, Pepper only takes about 12% of the credit for passing down disrespect for all authority and recklessness.”

“No, I mean—what happened—happens? She must have been young.”

Peter doesn’t answer right away. Tony doesn’t want to look up. He stays under the table, gathering tools and scraps in his arms.

Peter’s head peaks down under the surface.

“Sorry,” he says. “I was being—it’s stupid. I forget sometimes. 'Forget' isn't the right word. I don’t know.”

Tony shakes his head to brush away Peter’s apology. He grabs one last screw and crawls out from under the table. He arches his back when he stands. A few things pop. He’s too old to spend extended time on the ground hiding from his feelings. 

“I think she just wants to find her place without having to worry about—expectations.” Peter’s shoulders rise in a half-shrug. “You sort of cast a long shadow.”

“Well, that makes two of us that wish I didn’t.”

“It would have been the same either way though, you know?”

Tony guesses it would be. His shadow is just a little bit longer as a martyr than it would have been as a living legend. In death he’ll be a sort of idol forever. If he was alive he could have changed that—done something embarrassing or untoward to alleviate the weight of the past. 

“Maybe,” he says.

“Now, I’m going to go hang out with the small, sweet version of Morgan before I have to go back to dealing with the monster.”

“She’ll turn out alright. She’s just got to get it out of her system, god knows I did.”

Peter groans. He looks like he’s bracing himself for years to come. It’s a burden that Tony would accept in a heartbeat.

**February 15, 2020**

Tony has been trying to crack time travel since he first found out about Peter’s ability. A few times he’s gotten close, but he’s never quite managed it. It shouldn’t work the way that it does for Peter. He shouldn’t be able to affect his own future. It goes against the science. There must be magic involved.

Some nights, he fiddles with simulations. FRIDAY runs test after test. Nothing ever pans out. It’s fine. He doesn’t really expect anything at this point anyway.

Even if Tony could go back in time, he wouldn’t be able to undo what happened with Thanos. Peter’s tried. He’s never said it out loud, but Tony can glean the information. He’s sure the kid spent countless days redoing their fight on Titan. So, even if one of the simulations did work out, Tony doubts he could fix anything.

But, he could go back and grab the stones. That’s the option with the highest probability, albeit still low, so terribly low, of working.

There’s a more selfish motivation, too, but Tony tries to focus on the noble one.

It’s just nice to imagine that one day he could get to where Peter visits from.

**May 29, 2020**

_Happy Birthday Tony!_

_I didn’t want to interrupt your special day. I hope you spend it with your family and that Rhodey doesn’t make too much fun of how old you are. The whole world’s celebrating it here. We all miss you (I don’t want to be annoying and claim I miss you the most, but I think it’s a pretty close call)._

_Love,_

_Peter_

**June 3, 2020**

“You can come on my birthday, you know.”

Peter shakes his head. He stares out at the lake, clearly uncomfortable under Tony’s scrutiny. “It’s not my place.”

“I’m not going to force you to do anything,” Tony replies. “But I’d like you here next time. Or if you want to redo the last one.”

“I’m trying to make my visits chronological so they’re not confusing for you guys,” Peter says. “But, I’ll think about your next one—maybe.”

Tony sighs and leans his head back against the dock. It’s a cloudy day, but still hot. They might get a good thunderstorm this afternoon. He’d love to watch the sky light up with electricity. It reminds him of Thor. He should really check in on the guy. He wasn’t at the last Avengers brunch.

“I usually go back to an old one—from before—and just re-live it. I don’t tell you I'm there from the future or anything.”

He sometimes forgets that Peter can go back before everything went wrong. Tony thinks about going to the future all the time, but it would be a relief to spend a day hanging out in the past. There were wormholes and killer-AIs, but the world wasn’t broken. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty. He should keep that in mind now. It’s always better than you think it is.

“How was it?”

Peter grins. “Good—it was good. I can’t believe you put up with me back then. I was such an annoying kid.”

“You’re still an annoying kid,” Tony punches his shoulder lightly. “Don’t forget that.”

  
  


**October 10, 2020**

The door to the garage slams open, hitting the wall next to it with such velocity that Tony knows there will be a dent before he looks up. 

“There you are,” Peter says. “Thank god.”

He grabs the door and swings it back in the other direction. When it lands in the frame, it looks off-center. Peter definitely messed it up. Tony adds it to the mental list of things he needs to work on. He should probably move it to the top because it’s a practical, necessary repair. Instead he leaves it at the bottom because, well, fixing a door isn’t as fun as making a suit or a toy.

“Hello, Peter, nice to see you again, too.”

“I’m freaking out, Tony.”

Tony stands. He feels all the little hairs on the back of his neck prick up in apprehension. 

“What, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s _wrong_.” Peter’s face breaks into a wide grin. It shaves years off of him. He looks almost like Tony remembers if he thinks way back to the first day in his room, with the ridiculous pajama suit and goggle eyes in a terrible hiding place in the ceiling. “I proposed!”

“You—”

“I _proposed!_ ” His hands comb through his hair, slicking it up into a messy semi-quiff that falls slowly back down as he continues to speak. “I didn’t even mean to, it just slipped out! And MJ kind of has a thing about the institution of marriage so as soon as I said it, I thought I was going to have to redo it, you know? Her face is so unreadable sometimes, I just—”

Tony feels his face starting to mirror the grin on Peter’s. “She said yes?”

“I’m getting to that! Let me finish the story.”

“You take forever. Get to the good stuff.”

“Okay, so we were just sitting in our living room watching—I don’t even know what, I wasn’t paying attention to the movie. And I just asked—out of nowhere—and I didn’t have a ring or anything, Tony! She was silent for so long—it felt like ages! And then she kissed me and I was like ‘is that a yes?’ and she was like ‘you think I’d be kissing you right now if it was a no?’. So apparently we’re getting _married_. How crazy is that?”

There are tears. Tony won’t let them leave his eyes, not now, maybe later after they’ve celebrated and Peter’s gone back to his own time. His eyes feel squinty as he tries to keep them in. 

“Crazy,” he says, softly. “Just crazy.”

Peter continues to ramble about the plans and what kind of ring he will buy her. Tony watches him and tries to focus on how full his heart feels rather than the little crack that’s starting to open in the middle of it. If he thinks about that, it will just grow and eventually split him in two.

**January 21, 2021**

“Morgan wants hot chocolate,” Pepper says. “Could you make some?”

Tony sighs. He’s pretty sure they had this same conversation yesterday, and absolutely nothing has changed since then. “We don’t have any—I could run to the store.”

“I thought you were going today.”

“No, I—”

“It’s too late to go out, now.”

“I used to fight crime, honey, in a tin suit, against gods and aliens and—”

“Gold-titanium alloy suit, actually,” Pepper interjects. “As one strikingly handsome but exceedingly obnoxious young man once told me.”

“I’m so flattered by young that I don’t even care about the rest,” Tony replies.

Pepper takes a step closer, tapping his cheek. “I meant when you were younger, not now, old man.”

“I can go get hot chocolate.”

The third voice startles both of them and they spring apart like kids who had closed the door against a parent’s wishes.

Peter waves from the doorway. 

“I’ve got time, you know,” he says with a smirk.

It’s always a relief when he shows up again. Each time he leaves, Tony’s afraid it will be the last. 

“I have a better idea,” Tony announces. “Let’s get ice cream.”

“Tony, it’s thirty degrees.”

“We can handle it.”

It’s far too cold for ice cream. They stand outside a nearly abandoned shop eating it anyway. Morgan’s probably the warmest, running in circles, flitting from one adult’s side to another between licks. Pepper’s wearing at least three jackets. Peter eyes them enviously.

Naturally, Tony starts singing _Frozen_. Morgan’s the only one who joins in. He makes sure to scream ‘the cold never bothered me anyway’ part right in Pepper’s ear. 

He’s starting to understand why she called him ‘obnoxious’.

**March 27, 2021**

Before New York, Tony’s dreams were always of the future. Then, Loki came, with his army sent by Thanos, and for a while Tony’s dreams were all about the past. The sudden shift was unsettling. He’d felt like a part of himself had been altered in a way that he could never come back from.

Then for a while he dreamed of both. Someone was always falling or dying or betraying him and he was always the reason, the one who failed. He was always left alone, with the weight of the world, and nothing he could do to change the outcome.

These days though, he doesn’t even make an appearance in his own dreams. He sees the future without himself in it.

**May 29, 2021**

Morgan sits atop Tony’s shoulders, hands covering his eyes. She’s supposed to be leading him blind into the room, but she’s a little young for that. FRIDAY’s picking up the slack.

“Three more steps forward, then a right turn, Boss.”

Tony follows the instructions, he pretends to fall forward a bit, to mess with Morgan. It’s a mistake. He winces as her fingers dig into his eye sockets. Her peels of laughter that follow sort of make up for it.

“Open! Open!” Morgan removes her hands and starts patting his cheeks.

He opens his eyes and the room erupts in cheers that dwindle into the Birthday Song. There’s a cake—that someone put his real age on. He’ll be scraping that off as soon as he gets his hands on a utensil. Rhodey and Happy are flanking Pepper’s sides behind the table. The original team is all there, and some of the members who were added over the years. There are even a few visitors from space.

But, most importantly, there’s Peter. He’s wearing sunglasses indoors. It’s such a Tony Stark move that his heart swells with something like pride even though he knows that it’s just a really awful disguise so that the whole superhero community won’t realize that Spider-Man has more powers once whatever happens happens. They probably wouldn’t recognize him anyway. This is a full-grown man here. A boy is what will come back from the snap.

“I hope this is alright,” Peter says later, after the cake is cut and the crowd has dispersed into smaller groups about the cabin.

Tony can’t stop smiling. “Of course it is.”

**August 8, 2021**

“Did I ever tell you about Beck?”

“Beck,” Tony repeats, mulling over the name in his mind. It sounds familiar, but not in relation to Peter. “I don’t think so.”

“It was a doozy. If I couldn’t time travel, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“Oh, yeah? Did I ever tell you about Stane?”

Peter’s brow furrows. “I don’t think so.”

“A doozy, as you said.”

Peter grins. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

**December 3, 2021**

Peter’s crying because he’s going to have a child. Tony’s crying because he’s never going to get to meet them. He’ll hear about the kid all the time, he’s sure of that, but Peter can’t bring pictures with him when he comes back here. He’s tried with Morgan. They always disappear. Tony hates magic.

“You’re going to be a great dad, Pete.” Tony’s voice only cracks a little bit. 

“Well, I, uh.” Peter ducks his head. “I learned from the best.”

He’s looking at Tony like he means him. Tony knows he can’t be serious. Their real time together was too short, and Tony made unforgivable mistakes in just those few years. He wasn’t a good father figure to Peter. Some days he isn’t even sure if he’s a good father to Morgan.

“I think you should tell Ben,” he says instead of arguing the point.

“What?”

“You still visit him, right?”

“Well, yeah, but I never tell him it’s me from the future.”

Tony doesn’t understand how Peter sticks to that. He has more impulse control than Tony gives him credit for.

“You should change that. I think he’d really want to know.”

Peter doesn’t answer. Tony assumes that means he’ll think about it.

**January 15, 2022**

Tony steps back from the swing in front of him when his phone rings. He takes it out of his pocket, notes Pepper on the caller ID, and taps the answer symbol.

“Dad,” Morgan whines. “You have to keep pushing me.”

“Sorry, Mo, one sec,” Tony deposits the phone on his shoulder and cranes his neck to the side to keep it there. He steps forward and pushes the back of the swing as hard as he dares. Morgan whoops in delight. “Hey, Pep, miss us already?”

“Tony—”

“Think we’re getting codependent in our old age, Mrs. Stark?”

“Tony, listen. Peter’s here. He’s pretty worked up.”

Tony grabs both chains of the swing when it gets close to him, despite Morgan’s protests. “We’re on our way.”

He scoops Morgan up and jogs over to where the car is parked. His hands shake as he tries to strap her into her carseat.

Peter’s never arrived and been upset—not since that first visit _._ He’s been excited or, on the rare occasion, quiet and stoic, but he’s never been in any sort of way that would make Pepper call him like that. _Worked up_ , she said. Someone’s died. It has to be. Or the world’s in grave danger again. Tony doesn’t know how he’ll be able to help from here, but he’ll do everything that he can.

He takes the steps to the porch of the cabin in one leap with the grace a younger man. He passes Morgan into Pepper’s arms and follows her nod into the room that Peter always stays in when he visits.

Peter’s laying on the bed. He’s facing away from the door, so Tony can’t see his face.

Tony walks around the bed and crouches next to it. From this side, he can tell that Peter’s eyes are closed. His face is flushed in a splotchy pattern, his forehead lined with tension.

“What’s wrong, kid? What happened?”

His eyes flick open and he quickly shifts into a sitting position, legs hanging over the edge of the bed. A thin smile cracks across his face. There’s no joy there.

“Sorry, I told Pepper not to call you. I have—” Peter winces as he trails off.

 _Time._ Tony looks up, making direct eye contact for a painful second before Peter turns his head away.

“What happened?”

Peter’s hands start dancing around his lap. He positions them in a number of ways before he finally flattens them against his thighs.

“I told Ben about the baby.”

It’s not quite the catastrophe that Tony had envisioned the whole drive to the cabin. 

“And—” he prompts.

“And, uh—” Peter takes a sharp breath and his face crumples.

Tony’s heart is pounding. It feels like it’s right under his skin, threatening to break through it. “What happened?”

Peter just stares, eyes watery and scared. He may be an adult, but every instinct Tony has tells him to pile Morgan’s unicorn blanket on top of him and keep him right here in this room. Or maybe build him another suit—that’s one of the only ways Tony knows to keep people safe. 

“I can’t go past the baby’s birth,” Peter whispers. 

“What?”

Peter stands and crosses his arms, pacing a little. “Some bullshit rule. If you do, the child changes every time—different sperm? I don’t know. That’s what Ben said.” He kicks the ground. “So fucking stupid.”

Tony feels laughter starting to bubble out of him. He tries to stop, but he’s never been great at controlling it in inappropriate situations. It starts with the slightest exhale, but quickly grows more boisterous. He covers his mouth to try to stop it or hide it or _something_ but he keeps snickering.

“Sorry,” he says between bouts. “Sorry.”

Peter’s face twists up in disgust. “What the fuck, Tony?”

“It’s just—” He breaks off again, almost doubling over. It’s verging on hysterical—not great. He really needs to rein it in. “It’s just—I thought someone had died. I’m just relieved, god. I was imagining Thanos 2.0–”

“People _are_ going to die.” The rise in volume of his voice sobers Tony quickly. “Two people, really close to me, in fact. So, I’m sorry if I don’t find this very relieving or funny or whatever—”

“We’re already dead.”

All the fight drains out of Peter’s body. His limbs hang limp by his sides, completely still. Tony doesn’t see his chest move up or down either. He has half a mind to get up and lead him to a chair so that he won’t collapse on the spot.

But, then Peter blinks once, and again. 

“Um.”

The syllable sounds helpless. Tony’s never heard anything quite like it. 

“We were already gone, Pete. This extra time, it was a gift.”

“I—um.” He swallows. “I can’t do it without you.” 

Each word is punctuated by a pause, just a millisecond too long. The extra silence hurts Tony in a way he can’t explain. Peter’s a rambler, his words are supposed to shoot out fast, stumbling over each other in a race to meet the air first. 

Tony swallows and plasters a grin on to his face. “Sure you can.”

“No, I just—I won’t. I’ll stay here. I’ll just keep coming back.”

“Boring,” Tony sing-songs.

“Stop.”

“No, you stop. Listen to yourself.” Tony stands so that he’s at Peter’s eye level. “You’ve got the whole world—your whole life ahead of you. You’ve got a baby coming. A _baby._ How exciting is that?”

Peter opens his mouth and then closes it. His eyes dart to the side and then back to Tony.

“I don’t know how—I’ve always had you and Ben to—to help me. I’ll never be able to tell you about anything! Or ask for advice. Or—”

Tony scoffs and waves his hand like he’s batting the sentiment away. “What does an old man like me know about the future anyway?”

A few silent tears streak down Peter’s cheeks. “That’s your thing, right? Futurist.”

“Self-appointed titles. Rarely accurate. Best to ignore them completely.”

Peter makes a noise that’s somehow the midpoint between a laugh, a cough, and a sob. Tony turns away and squeezes his eyes shut. It's hard to breathe. 

**April 3, 2022**

There’s a figure sitting on the dock. Morgan’s the one who notices. She tugs on Tony’s sleeve and points out the window.

Tony makes his way out and sits next to Peter, letting his legs dangle over the edge.

“Were you going to come say hi or just sulk out here?”

Peter shrugs. He doesn’t look up from the water.

Tony stretches one of his legs out, so that the tips of his toes dip ever so slightly into the water. He kicks up, splattering some droplets onto Peter. He barely flinches. 

“I did some things I shouldn’t have,” Peter says. “Sorry.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shakes his head. “Can we just—sit?”

That’s what they do, as the sun falls towards the water. Tony watches the light fade to deep red, then blue, then black.

When he looks back to his right, Peter’s disappeared.

**July 22 2022**

“Morgan’s at MIT, now. I told you that, right?”

Tony nods. Peter told him when she applied and when she got in and all about her move-in day. Tony has all the details typed out in a securely protected file on his servers, along with all of the other stories that Peter has told about her over the years.

“She’s a math major—I tried to convince her to do some kind of engineering but she insisted—“

“I know, Pete, you told me.”

“Okay, good. She dyed her hair recently. It’s almost blond now. She was dating a girl in the spring that she was really excited about. I think they had a messy breakup but she won’t tell me the details. MJ probably knows—they get along so well. Did I tell you how they—“

“Got matching tattoos. Yes.”

“They’re not matching. They just went and got tattoos together. Morgan’s is a bottle of glue. I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean. Did I tell you that—“

Tony presses a hand over Peter’s mouth. “Yes, yes! You’ve told me everything.”

Peter pries the hand off. “There’s no way I’ve told you everything—there are so many little things everyday. It’s hard to remember all of them.”

“Peter. There are some things that I'm not going to know. It’s okay.”

Peter’s lips pinch around the edges. He looks—Tony knows the look. He’s felt his mouth form that same grimace. He knows better than anyone that this will never really be enough—for either of them. It’s not even just them. It’s Pepper too, and Morgan, and Rhodey, Happy, everyone. It will never be enough for any of them. There never is enough time, even for a boy who can ‘sort of’ travel through it. That's why you're supposed to treasure every moment. Tony's trying to.

“It’s okay,” Tony repeats.

Because it has to be.

**November 1, 2022**

“Daddy, Daddy."

Tony groans, blinking one eye open. He forces it to flick to the time—3 AM, Jesus—and then to Morgan’s face. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“Petey’s here. But something’s wrong with him.”

The other eye snaps open. “What do you mean?”

The moonlight filtering in through the window is just enough to make out the confused scrunch of Morgan’s nose. “He’s—weird.”

Tony bites back his dozens of clarifying questions, electing to swing Morgan up onto the bed next to Pepper instead. She squeaks in protest, but Tony quickly holds a finger to his lips, hoping to preserve Pepper’s sleep if possible.

“Stay here with mom, okay?”

“But—“

“It’s okay, just stay. I’ll be right back.”

Her lips curl into a pout, but she nods. Tony backs out of the room with his strictest dad face before easing the door shut and surveying the house. It’s dark, quiet. 

He tiptoes through the living room, and then the kitchen. He wanders into Peter’s room as well, peaking into the closet and under the bed just in case. There’s no sign of Peter. He’s almost ready to write Morgan’s account off as a dream.

And then there’s a thud on the porch—something heavy.

Tony opens the front door. There’s a body slumped over the steps. Tony flicks the light on. His heart drops at the familiar mousy hair.

Tony crouches next to him. His hand wanders to Peter’s neck, searching for a pulse. Peter doesn’t react to the touch, remaining stone-still.

“Are you hurt?”

Tony doesn’t know if that’s possible. Peter’s never arrived hurt before. He doesn’t know if that sort of thing would carry over through time.

“No,” Peter mumbles into the steps.

“Then, what’s going on here, kid?”

The lump shifts like Peter’s trying to push himself up and then collapses back to the steps. A few muffled giggles reach Tony’s ears. He frowns down at the wrinkled shirt collar and the disheveled way that the jacket is positioned over it.

A strong waft of liquor hits the air as Peter tilts his head upward. Tony cringes and recoils from it.

Peter’s face rearranges into a dopey grin. “‘Sup?”

“God, Peter. Tell me you’re not drunk right now.” 

It’s useless to even say it, when it’s obviously true. Tony’s always hated useless words and small talk. 

“‘S drunk? Not me.”

“How much do you even have to drink to—with your metabolism—it must be—“

“Lots and lots and lost and lots.” Peter’s forehead creases into a frown. “Think I said lost. Lots. Lost lots.”

Rage swells fast in Tony—something he hasn’t felt towards anyone except Thanos, least of all Peter, in years. It simmers under his skin. He stands and crosses his arms, looking up at the dark lawn and still lake. He can’t look down at Peter. He’s afraid of what he’ll say, what he’ll do.

“T’ny?”

“Get up,” he snaps.

Peter tries to. He doesn’t get very far before collapsing back to the steps. Tony squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his fists so hard that his nails dig into the skin of his palms.

“I said, get up.”

“Can’t.”

“Get up, now.”

“I’m trying,” Peter whines.

Tony bites the inside of his cheek—hard enough that he tastes blood. He leans down and grips under Peter’s shoulder to haul him to his feet. Disgruntled whimpers escape his mouth as he claws at Tony to steady himself.

“What’s wrong with you,” Tony hisses. “You let my daughter see you like this? How could you do that?”

“Didn’t mean’ta.”

“Well you did, she’s a child. She doesn’t deserve to see that.”

It’s everything that Tony never wanted her to experience—messy adults with the only remaining scraps of their self-control and dignity swimming at the bottom of a bottle. That’s the sort of thing that screws with a kid’s head. Tony remembers Howard and low rumbles of laughter, the sharp edges of a wine glass, the unpleasant lilt of slurred words. 

“What’s it matter?” Tony finally meets Peter’s eyes. They’re bloodshot and cloudy—something dull there, like maybe nobody’s present behind them at all. The worst part is that Tony remembers those eyes well. He’s seen them on his father’s face and in mirrors. “She drinks tons alr’dy. Like y’did.”

All the heat dissipates into cold shock. His grip falters and Peter staggers into the porch railing. He grunts in protest a few seconds too late.

Tony’s hands shake. He flexes them a few times before pulling Peter up again.

“I’m not talking to you like this. Get inside and sleep it off.”

“‘M a mess.” Peter scrabbles for a hold on Tony’s arm. “Didn’t mean it. ‘M sorry.”

“Later.”

“‘M a mess. A mess.”

Tony clenches his teeth and drags Peter’s near limp body to the door. He props him off to the side while he wedges it open and then starts down the hall toward Peter’s room with him in tow.

“Mess. Mess. Mess.”

“Shhh.”

Peter keeps murmuring the word, over and over, no matter how many times Tony tries to quiet him. A small part of Tony longs to throw him back on the porch. But he couldn’t do that, not to Peter, even like this.

Tony gets him to the bed, finagles him on to it one limb at a time. Peter flops against the sheets, staring up at Tony with those blank, blank eyes.

“Mess. ‘M a mess.”

Tony needs to let it go. At least for tonight. The chances that Peter remembers anything that is said are so low. Tony should just leave. He runs one of his shaky hands through his hair and then claps both of them together.

Peter’s eyes focus on his hands, clearing just a bit around the edges. 

“We’ll talk in the morning. I’ll get you some water.” Tony turns to the door. 

“Mess,” Peter repeats. “C’n’t do this. Too hard. I can’t. ‘M a mess.”

It strikes a chord—not the first thing to do so tonight, but this time a string somewhere deep inside Tony snaps. He whirls around.

“You think I’m not?” He spits the words, hot and fast, every syllable dripping with anger that must have been building without Tony’s knowledge since the day that Peter arrived at the cabin. “You think I _can_ do this? Three years! Three years, Peter, I’ve been waiting to _die_. You have no idea how that feels.”

Peter’s mouth bobs open and closed, creases appearing between his eyebrows.

“It’s not even the first time! You think I’d be used to it by now.”

“‘Ny I’m—“

“Dying was supposed to be the goddamn easy part.” He should lower his voice. It’s rising with the volume of his heart beat and the roaring that’s taken over in his ears. “I was always so afraid that I would be the last one. That I’d be standing there alone and it would all be my fault. I wanted to die first! I wanted that to happen!”

Peter’s hands come up to cover his face. Nonsense syllables fall from his mouth. They sound pained.

“But then I didn’t! I wanted to grow old with Pepper in this cabin in the middle of the damn woods with our alpaca and our garden. I wanted the chance to do that! I _wanted_ to see Morgan grow up! And I wanted to be able to want that!”

Peter rolls over onto his side, his knees coming up toward his head. His shoulders are shaking. Tony wants to curl into a ball as well. His knees feel as unsteady as his hands.

The roaring in his ears fades, allowing the quiet to take over the house. The only sounds are Peter’s light sobs and Tony’s ragged breaths. Until—

“Tony?”

A pang shoots down his left arm. He massages it with his right hand, before quirking a half-smile towards Pepper. It’s not the appropriate expression. He can’t think of anything else to put on his face.

“Everything okay?” she asks.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you—sorry—I’m—it’s—“ He gestures to the bed helplessly. His hand trembles in the air.

Pepper should be angry at him—for waking her up and probably scaring Morgan and making life difficult. As always. He always makes it more difficult for her. He’d been trying to stop that. 

Pepper grabs his outstretched hand with both of hers. She squeezes it twice and just looks—sad. It’s worse somehow.

“Morgan wants you.” Pepper guides him towards the door. “She’s in our room, okay?”

“Peter. He—he’s drunk. He needs—”

“I’ve got Peter. Go get Morgan. It’s okay.”

Tony hesitates by the door. “Pep, I—”

“It’s okay, Tony. Go.”

Tony stays by the door for a few more seconds than he has to, watching Pepper roll Peter over and then ease him up against a pillow. The dim light catches on the tear-tracks lining his cheeks. Tony clenches his fist around his wrist again and finally turns away.

Morgan pops up from between two pillows as soon as Tony steps into his room. Her eyes are huge, bewildered and scrutinizing.

“Dad.” Her tone is an accusation, a question, and a plea all at once.

“Hi, Mo.”

Her head tilts to the side, eyes narrowing to slits. Tony takes a deep breath and crosses the room to sit next to her. He shoots her a tight smile before staring straight ahead. It’s hard to look at her and not think of everything that he and Peter just said, everything that’s to come.

Her palm comes up to his cheek. She lays it flat across it. 

“You’re crying,” she says.

Tony touches his other cheek, feels the same evidence of tears that Morgan must have felt on the first. He forces his lips into a wider smile and then removes her hand.

“It happens. Everybody cries sometimes.”

Morgan’s lower lip starts to wobble. “Are you sad?”

“A little bit.”

“Why?”

It’s her favorite word recently. Why this, why that. Her mind is expanding at rates that Tony can barely comprehend. It’s like watching one of his AIs learn, but better because she’s flesh and bones and unbridled potential. It’s also scarier because there are no do-overs, he can’t delete mistakes and start from scratch. Anything he says to her is a permanent line in her code, a permanent mark on her psyche.

“That’s a big question—”

“So, it has a big answer,” Morgan finishes.

It’s what Tony always says, because Morgan does have so many questions, not all with suitable answers for a three and a half year-old. She hated the ‘we’ll talk about it when you’re older’ approach, so now they have this.

“Do you want a big answer right now?”

Her lip starts to wobble faster. A tear falls from one of her eyes and Tony stops it with his index finger just below her eyelashes.

“Will it make us sad?”

Tony swallows. “Kind of. It’s bittersweet—know what that means?”

“It’s mixed up. Sad and happy.”

“Got it in one!”

Tony pokes her stomach and her face breaks into a toothy grin as she giggles. But, there are still tears running down her face, too many for Tony’s finger to keep up with.

Morgan slips her hand into Tony's and then nods once. “Ready. What’s the big answer?”

Tony inhales, closes his eyes, exhales, opens them.

“Well,” he says. “One day, I won’t be here anymore. Like the memorial we went to. All the people who aren’t with us anymore.”

“The vanished,” Morgan whispers.

“Kind of like that.” But they’ll all be back. At least Tony hopes so. If everything works out how Peter says it does, they should be. “And when I’m gone, you’ll still be here. You’ll—”

Morgan’s shaking her head back and forth, her face folded up into a deep frown. She uses the sleeve of her shirt to wipe under her eyes. “But, why? I don’t want that.”

“That’s what happens, Morgan. Everyone goes away eventually.”

“That’s dying. Emily’s grandma died.” 

“It is. That’s—”

Morgan lets go of Tony’s hand and buries her face into his chest instead.

“Don’t like this,” she mumbles, her mouth moving directly over the spot where the arc reactor used to be, so many years ago. “It’s too big.”

“I know, I’m sorry. No more of that. Do you want to hear the sweet part?”

Her head nods.

“You’re going to live an incredible, full life, kiddo.” He starts to rub her back as he speaks. “You’re going to see so many things, and do so many more things, and sometimes you’re going to be so happy that you can’t believe it’s possible and sometimes you’re going to be so angry that you can’t stand it. But, the thing that most people don’t know is that both of those things are good, in their own ways.” 

Tony discretely brings a hand up to stop his own tears from falling down onto Morgan’s head. “There’s a fire in you, Mo. It’s small right now, but it will grow. You might even change the world with it.”

She looks up and Tony can see it there. It’s written in the slight knit of her brow and the way that her chin tilts up defiantly and the spark behind her eyes.

“But the best part of all is that as long as you’re here, I’m never really gone. I’ll be there, even if you can’t see me.”

“How?” It’s Morgan’s second favorite question. Second only to why.

Tony doesn’t know if there’s an afterlife. It’s not something that a living person can prove or disprove. But, he’s learned a lot about life on earth, and the people that inhabit it.

“I think that when you love someone, pieces of them stick to you—” Tony squeezes Morgan’s hand. “Like glue.”

“And I love you,” she says.

Tony bites his lip, and looks up at the ceiling, trying to quell the ache behind his eyes. 

“And I love you, too.” The words come out strangled. “Very, very much. So a little bit of me will always be on you, and a little bit of you will always be on me.”

“How do you know?”

Tony’s heart is Pepper’s and his right hand is Rhodey’s. Happy has his back and Yinsen opened his eyes. The Avengers are scattered through him, in every cut, bruise, and break. Peter and Morgan are deep within his blood.

He shrugs. “It’s just what I believe. You can decide for yourself one day.” 

“Okay,” she says slowly.

Tony kisses her forehead and wishes more than anything that the future could change.

* * *

Morgan falls asleep and Tony stares at the ceiling. Pepper comes in, the same sad expression, crossed with a little worry. She quietly tells him that Peter’s fine, then lays on the other side of the bed. Her breathing doesn’t slow so he knows she’s awake. Tony keeps staring at the ceiling. Maybe Pepper is too.

It’s 5 AM when she speaks. “I don’t know what to say this time, Tony, I really don’t.”

Tony closes his eyes. He can see an exact replica of the ceiling on the back of his eyelids. 

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not that. It’s not your fault.”

Tony scoffs. “You don’t know that.”

“Tony—“

“Just tell me that you’ll be okay.”

She’s quiet for too long before, “We will be.”

He nods. He’s not sure if she can see it.

“I’m going to the garage.”

“Wait.” Pepper leans over Morgan’s sleeping body and wraps her arms around him. Her hands run up his back and scrape through his scalp. She kisses the corner of his mouth before patting his back and relinquishing her hold. “Okay, go ahead.”

Pepper pulls Morgan tighter to her side as Tony leaves. He’s not dead yet. He doesn’t think he dies today. It still feels like he’s seeing them for the last time. It always does.

The lights flick on as Tony opens the door to the garage. A holographic suit prototype spins lazily in one corner. DUM-E comes over and butts his claw against Tony’s shoulder.

Tony pats the claw absentmindedly before wandering to the center of the lab, clapping his hands together. “Anything pressing to work on, Fri?”

“Same as usual, boss.”

Because there is, but there isn’t. The world is broken, and Tony’s hands always itch to fix broken things, but there’s nothing concrete to do. He’s missing a piece of time travel. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever find it.

The door opens and shuts. Footsteps pad across the concrete floor and a chair squeaks. Tony doesn’t have to look up to know who it is.

“How’s your head?”

“It wears off fast. Metabolism, you know?”

Tony hums and taps randomly at the screen on the table in front of him.

“That was so out of line. All of it. I’m sorry.”

“Why don’t you redo it then? You could.”

“That’s not—“ The chair squeaks again as Peter shifts in it. “That’s not how I want to use it. It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card. I have to own up to my mistakes. And deal with the consequences.”

Tony wishes he had learned that lesson when he was Peter’s age. He was a little over a decade older than Peter is now when that finally sank in.

“Ben was a wise guy.”

“I learned that one from you.”

Tony opens his mouth to answer, but no words come out. He clears his throat instead and busies himself with the useless tapping. 

“I know you’re mad. You should be. I didn’t even mean—I don’t know why I said that. It’s not true. Everyone drinks in college. I just worry about her. It’s no excuse. I’m sorry.”

“‘S fine.”

“It’s not. I—”

“It _is_ , Peter.”

“No, it’s not! None of this is fine.”

Tony’s hand slams from it’s position in the air by the hologram to the table. The light of the hologram falls with it, shifting the room from the pinky-red hue coming off of the Iron Man suit hologram to the harsh fluorescent overhead lights.

“It is, because it has to be. Don’t you see that?”

Peter stands, the chair rolling backwards as he throws his hands in the air. “I’m gonna go. I shouldn’t have come back here.”

“I said it’s fine, Peter.”

“I mean ever. I never should have come back here at all! I just made everything worse for you. It was selfish. God, I—” He runs a shaky hand through his hair. “I’m so sorry.”

Tony can’t imagine the last three years of his life without Peter’s visits. It eased the ache of grief that always sat like a weight deep in his chest from the moment he felt dust on his fingertips on Titan to that knock on the cabin door a year later. It gave him a chance to watch Peter grow up in moments stolen from time. Tony could never truly regret that.

“You’re not the only one who said things they didn’t mean last night.”

“But they were true.” Peter swallows thickly. “I took away the opportunity for you to have a peaceful last—few years.”

“It wouldn’t have been peaceful either way, kid.”

Peter shrugs. He bites his lip and swipes each arm fast under his eyes. “I’m just—so sorry. It’s my fault.”

“Enough of that.”

Peter nods and swipes a few more times, sniffling. 

“I’m not handling this well.” He lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “Clearly.”

“Does MJ know?”

Peter’s face crumples further as he shakes his head, staring down at the ground. “I’m acting so—she doesn’t even—”

“I think it’s time you tell someone about all this. Someone who’s not dead. You can't keep living in the past.” Tony sighs and rubs the back of his neck. "Life goes on, for better or for worse. And better always comes eventually. I probably should have told you that a while ago."

“Yeah.” Peter takes a deep breath that catches a few times on it’s way in. “Maybe.”

**January 22, 2023**

Tony finds Pepper squeezing Peter in a crushing embrace in the kitchen and he knows—not exactly what, but he knows that it’s something.

Pepper glances up and notices Tony over Peter’s shoulder. Her eyes are misty, but she doesn’t look crushed. Tony thinks she’d look crushed if this was the day he was set to die.

She mouths a long string of words. It’s a bad habit she has, assuming that he’ll be able to decipher full paragraphs just from the shape of her lips. The most bizarre part of it all is that he can get most of her messages by now. She’s trained him well. He catches 'MJ' and and what’s either 'neighbor' or 'labor'. He uses his superior intellect to deduce that it’s the latter.

“Hey Pete,” he says. “Shouldn’t you be present in this moment with Scary Michelle?”

Peter jerks away from Pepper, red-rimmed eyes moving to Tony.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call her that?”

Tony shrugs. “First impressions. Hard to change.”

Peter’s across the room and his arms are wrapped around Tony before he even has the chance to blink. 

“I’m sorry, again, for showing up—that already happened right?”

“Relax about it. It’s in the past—can’t do anything to change it. Well, at least I can’t. You could have and choose not to.”

A puff of air hits Tony’s neck and shoulder as Peter laughs. It’s gone as quickly as it arrives and Peter squeezes tighter. Tony bites back a whimper—the kid still forgets his own strength.

“I’m scared,” Peter whispers.

“Of parenthood? You should be.”

Another puff of air. It’s so much better than being soaked in tears.

“All I ask, if it’s a boy, name the kid after me? Actually, name ‘em after me no matter what.”

Peter giggles, actually giggles, and Tony’s doing a fantastic job at this goodbye if he’s got Peter not just smiling, but giggling.

“I’m fully kidding, if you give your child my name I will rise from my grave and forcibly alter the birth certificate.”

“Shut up! I’ll name my kid whatever I want, thanks.”

“Whatever, you’ve always been a little punk.”

Peter pulls away and shoots Tony a mock-glare. It’s made even less effective by the haze of tears over his eyes. Tony hadn’t been doing as well as he thought after all. He curses Peter’s tear glands.

“I, uh, talked to MJ. I don’t think I should stay here for long. I’m just going to go see Ben one last time, and then—uh, you know.”

Tony smiles. “Good plan. She’s a smart one. Maybe I will upgrade her name.”

“She’ll appreciate that.”

Tony nods.

“Well, I just want to—” Peter kneads his hands together and looks all around the room before looking back at Tony. “You’re a good man. I just want to say, thanks—for everything, Mr. Stark.”

Tony blinks, feels his eyebrows shoot upward. “Mr. Stark? Huh. Haven’t heard that one from you in years.”

“Time’s kind of messy for me, you know how it is. Uh. I love you—and stuff.”

And stuff. Tony barely stops himself from snorting. It’s perfectly Peter in all the endearing awkwardness of the fifteen year old boy that Tony still sees when he looks at him. Some things never change.

“Well, back atcha, bud, and stuff. Good luck with the kid.”

“Thanks.”

Peter drifts over to Morgan. He lifts her in the air so that she’s at his eye-level. “Bye little Morgan who doesn’t stress me out.”

She starts laughing—clearly has no idea what’s happening. Tony covets that ignorance.

“Bye, Pepper, see you soon, kind of.”

She waves, expression unreadable. Tony thinks that she might have drawn the worst lot in this arrangement. She was there for the Before and the After, and she’ll be there for the After After—whatever that entails, knowing all of it.

“Bye, Tony.”

“See ya, kid.”

The poor choice of words pops out automatically, leaving Tony cringing.

“Actually, you will. And I mean _me_ -me, not just young-me.”

Before Tony has a chance to ponder that, Peter hugs him one last time, and then darts out the door. Tony follows after him—remembering a time at the tower where he’d done the same. He realizes that he never asked Peter about that night.

The lawn is empty—just as Tony expected. He never knew how much empty spaces could hurt until the world became full of them.

**April 15th, 2023**

When Steve, Nat, and a guy that Tony can’t immediately place drop by, he assumes it’s just a visit. Steve and Nat come over often enough—usually not together, or with a man Tony doesn’t know, but still.

Morgan flies through the screen door as soon as they get out of the car. She darts between Steve and Nat. Tony can see her mouth moving fast as she undoubtedly tries to catch them up on whatever’s been happening in her little head since she last saw them.

Tony steps out onto the porch. Steve smiles, but Nat frowns. He doesn’t know what to make of that.

“There’s been a development,” Nat says when she reaches the porch.

Tony sends Morgan inside and gestures for them to sit down.

It’s hard to focus on the whole story once he gets the gist of what the random guy—Scott—is saying. They want to time travel back to get the stones. It’s everything that Tony’s been working towards and Scott has a puzzle piece that might just fit into the missing spot.

“We can fix everything. We just need a genius.” Steve’s smile is so bright. Tony doesn’t want to have to crush it.

“But, we understand that this is a—delicate situation,” Nat adds. “Especially for you.”

She looks inside the window and Tony follows her gaze. Morgan’s running around Pepper’s legs, pulling at her pants. Pepper picks her up and meets Tony’s eyes through the window.

Tony tries to quiet his mind. It won’t stop running numbers, playing different scenarios. He wonders if this is new, a deviation from what happened before Peter came back to life, or if this is the beginning of the end.

“I can’t,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

Nat nods like that’s what she was expecting.

Scott gives him a hard time about it. Steve looks nothing short of heartbroken. They don’t stay for lunch.

Tony watches their car pull away. Then a figure emerges from behind some trees. It’s not hard to guess who it is. He’s grown pretty used to the same person showing up in random places throughout the last few years. It confirms that this visit must have happened in Peter’s reality, too. Otherwise, he wouldn’t know to be here.

“You have most of time travel, don’t you,” Peter says when he gets closer. “The quantum realm is all you’re missing.”

Tony grimaces. “Maybe.”

“Don’t do it,” Peter says.

“I’m not going to.”

Peter huffs. “Yeah, right.”

“It’s just—it’s not a bad trade. You have to see that.”

Peter hangs his head. “I changed nothing. Unbelievable.”

“Going to the past can't change the future. It's against the science, Pete. You know quantum physics. This isn't Back to the Future—I wish it was.”

“I've been changing the future by going to the past my whole life.”

Tony knows that. It stumps him every time. He's never been able to reconcile it. Now is no different.

"Some things are inevitable," he tries.

"That's a stupid word." Peter hesitates and then fixes Tony with an intense stare. "Just don't give up because you think you know how it's going to end, okay? At least try to stay alive."

Tony nods.

Peter leaves soon after that. Tony wonders if it was a Peter from before or after they found out their time had a limit.

* * *

Scott's and Peter's words don’t leave his mind while he plays with Morgan, or throughout dinner, or while he does the dishes. He’s not paying enough attention and he douses the shelf next to the sink.

He picks up one of the frames. Peter grins up from the photo. He’s still young—not the Peter who has visited him over the years.

It was a good day—the one in the picture, long before Peter told him he had more than one super power. They hadn’t realized that the certificate was upside down until after the photographer left. Tony wonders why Peter didn’t go back and change it.

Tony wipes at the photo gently. He stares down at Peter and thinks about time.

He makes his way downstairs slowly, feet dragging on every step. Half of him is screaming to go back up, lock the door behind him, and get in bed. The other half is stronger.

The first few tries yield no different results than he’d gotten before he knew about the quantum realm. Tony assesses the hologram thoughtfully.

“This time the shape of a Möbius strip, please.”

“It will take a few moments, boss.”

A few moments. It's nothing in the scheme of things.

“Yeah, well,” Tony leans back in his chair, with a small smile on his face. “I have time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Thanks for reading :)
> 
> So, this was my original ending but there will be a third, much shorter chapter with a straight up happy ending soonnnnn

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it :)
> 
> I'm on [tumblr!](https://peterparkrr.tumblr.com)


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